City girl caught in Dubai sex trap

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script><br />KOLKATA: At 18, Priti Bhatia, a BCom. first-year student of South City College, had everything going for a beautiful life. Now, her family fears she is wasting away in a Dubai brothel.<br /></div> <div align="left" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" border="1" width="24.5%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/379327.cms" alt="/photo/379327.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" f3f3f3=""> <div class="Normal"><span style="" font-size:="">Priti Bhatia</span></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal"><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Priti has been missing since over a month but the police are doing little to find her, although they claim to have identified the family that was behind her abduction.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">The girl''s parents have tried everything they could — even flying to Mumbai to pay the initial ransom demand of Rs 2 lakh — but now they have lost all hope of seeing Priti again.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">The police fear she has been smuggled to Dubai soon after her abduction and that the ransom demand was a hoax.The gang has hiked the ransom to Rs 5 lakh. A well organised girl-trafficking racket entrenched in Kolkata and Mumbai is believed to be behind her disappearance.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">The members of the accused family — who live in Shah Alam Lane, Khidderpore — has gone undergorund. "From the very beginning, we were suspicious of Zubin Ahmed (17) of Shah Alam Lane, who introduced himself as Rubin Mehta and kept harassing Priti.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Initially, Zubin''s father Shah Nawaz Ahmed shot down the accusation, but when we threatened to lodge a complaint with the police, he confessed that Priti was with his son in Mumbai," Bhatia alleged.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold="">Priti went missing on November 19. "Me and my wife Kiran flew to Mumbai the moment the abductors concated us and asked for Rs 2 lakh.</span><br /><br /><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold=""><formid=367815></formid=367815></span><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal">But there, they hiked it to Rs 5 lakh which they knew I could not immediately pay. I returned and lodged an FIR with Watgunge police station, but nothing came of it," rues Priti''s father Pradip Bhatia, who owns a ladies'' garments shop.<br /><br />"We went to Mumbai with Zubin''s uncle Shakil Ahmed on November 25 to pay them Rs 2 lakh. But at a Mumbai hotel, Zubin''s maternal uncle Arif Hazra said the ransom had to be Rs 5 lakh.�<br /><br />"We then went to Meera Road police station, but they asked us to start with Watgunge police station," Pradip said.<br /><br />But what the couple learnt from the Mumbai police sent a chill down their spine. The Mumbai cops have long suspected Arif to be part of an international girl trafficking racket.<br /><br />"Zubin''s mother Tania Hazra lives in Dubai. We called her but she told us that she knew nothing about Priti," said Kiran Bhatia. "Since then we have lost all hope."<br /><br /><formid=367815></formid=367815></div> </div>